I've come across a few websites lately that appear to use a php script for the login portion of their site, instead of site encryption. Can anyone tell me how secure this is, and what the preference is?

http://www.rmccurdy.com/scripts/ look for login with php etc you need curl/php or just plain curl/cgi can work but PHP/CURL has lot more options/ features you can also look at my proxy ripp script ./scripts/proxy some proxy sites have some nasty anti ripp using java / refer checking / cookies ...